From the many conversations I had with my students in class, two sentences stuck in my memory: “We feel neglected” and “We are never taken seriously”, which are two sharp knives of truth. Whose fault is it ? Ours. All of us. I have always been told that there is no book for parenting, but a parent should become a guide for his child. I ask myself the question now, who is more anxious, the parents in their role of guide or the children who blindly seek the instructions for use?
COVID-19 may have its back wide, but we are standing unequivocally above a precipice, and the fall is imminent. The education system has become a degree factory with no real desire for pedagogical education. And I weigh my words on “educational”. As a non-legally qualified teacher, which I was until last week before falling head over heels for this artifice that is secondary school, I dare allow myself some thoughts here that permanent teachers cannot. formulate in the public square. Allow me the pleasure of presenting to you the open secrets of this locomotive that is the ministerial education system.
On the French language
Many times have I heard the government and the people of Quebec rise up against the poor state of the French language in Canada and internationally. However, the majority of pupils in fifth secondary must have the language skills of a pupil of the end of primary, beginning of secondary. “Come on, you are generalizing! you will say. Well, if it’s not in French that your child is outclassed, it’s probably in another subject.
It is not well seen to sink a student
Everyone knows that sinking a student would cost the Quebec state far too much. Come on, boom! Take it to the next level and deal with your troubles! How do you expect young people to be curious in class if they are not even at their true academic level? What will happen to CEGEP? Why is there so much performance anxiety? Who should take on the burden of making a classroom a pleasant place to learn?
This is where the teachers come in. We are asked to teach a subject that the students don’t even understand and then tell them that everything is going to be fine. And if we have the misfortune to sink a student for any reason, well the parents, the administration and the school board, could we even say the company, will immediately protest to blame us, accusing us of not having offered the fruit of our knowledge with the right method.
Anyway, even if we decide to make your child sink in our subject, he will still pass his year and go to the next level as if nothing had happened. He will thus follow the wave of a so-called uneducated youth.
Secondary school is a daycare
To instruct or to educate, what is the role of the school in society? What is the role of parents, of the family, in education? One day, one of my colleagues told me that a parent had called the school to ask that her child (in external suspension) not stay at home since she was not going to be there. Beyond this flagrant lack of confidence, I notice that my young people have never developed certain skills that are crucial to their progression through the various stages of human development. Autonomy, a sense of responsibility and initiative have become rare commodities, if not unknown to young people. Not to mention the lack of effort and inability to solve problems.
In my eyes, the cause of all this can be summed up in one word: infantilization. We infantilize today’s youth. People assume that all of these skills are only developed in school. If this is the case, tell yourself one thing, the school of life will seem much more difficult to them when they have their high school diploma in their pocket.
The conservative education system is an old factory of the industrial era in which we continue to invest in a vacuum in the belief that one day it will pay off. This is no longer the case. It rusts by accumulating intellectual dust and expense while keeping warm by burning the potential of many. Life is not school.
The blinding ego
Our ego blinds us, preventing us from looking at young people living in a world more evolved than ours. How can we take our responsibilities seriously and stop letting go of what should have been taken care of a long time ago? The consequences of this lack of humility leave room for a generation that is disappointed and disinterested in its education. The school should be avant-garde, not an intellectual purgatory. The tools offered in the classroom should arouse wonder at the infinite possibilities that education could materialize, if we collectively put a little effort into it. It is the grace that I wish for all the students of Quebec, especially my own, to whom I dedicate this text.